How ironic that it should be Surly Shirley who bought her boys Phil, Ben and Jay a heap of a car at the beginning of the year.

For as they go about restoring the old banger to enter demolition derbys, they’ll always be reminded of her – in more ways than one.

But despite their enthusiasm for the project, is it enough to distract twisted son Ben from his secret feud with dad Phil?

True, the thug is lucky not to be in jail after Denise gave police the recording of him admitting to being responsible for the cut and shut car in which Kevin Wicks died.

But now there is new evidence from beyond the grave – Frank Butcher’s “confession” letter that he and Phil killed a down and out man in the car lot fire.

One dead body might be considered an accident, two carelessness, but then Phil’s arch enemy DCI Marsden comes up with a third. And she grills son Ben on how Phil’s fiancée Stella met her death on her wedding day in July 2007.

Would Ben see his dad go down for her murder? You bet.

Even someone as streetwise, sly and devious as Mandy isn’t invincible. And she could well have met her match in Beale The Squeal’s daughter Lucy who has the personality of a rattlesnake.

While Mandy may believe she has got her feet firmly under desperate Ian’s duvet, Lucy has different ideas. With a mixture of cunning and deceit inherited from the combined murky gene pool of dad Ian and her late mum Cindy, Lucy sets about bringing Mandy down on Monday.

Bonding over a boozy session together, Lucy dupes Mandy into believing she is her “cool, older sister” and persuades her into scoring drugs. But it’s an act that could cost Mandy her relationship with Ian when he finds out. Well, if she’s lucky…

With Lauren drinking far too much, sleeping around and bunking off school, dad Max and mum Tanya decide to take her to see the doctor. With parents like them, there’s one easy diagnosis to Lauren’s problems. She’s a Branning, isn’t she?

Bianca and mum Carol were so close to having David back in their lives until he did a runner. So could anything else go wrong as Bianca takes relationship advice from Carol about cheating husband Ricky? Uh-oh. Maybe he should pack a suitcase now.